Versace Mystique Sport Chronograph (Ref. VFG01 0013)

Powered by an inexpensive Ronda 5030 D quartz movement, the new Versace Mystique Sport Chronograph (Ref. VFG01 0013) has little value as a collectible item, but it still looks like a nice fashion accessory for those preferring sportier style in their everyday life.

Clearly not a design icon, the Italian fashion brand Versace has a style of its own. While their watches are not terribly original, they are still well-balanced and, basically, deliver more value than an average timekeeper offered you by most of those overpriced fashion houses.

This new Versace Mystique Sport Chronograph (Ref. VFG01 0013), for example, can be found online at less than €1000. For the money, you get a massive, attention-grabbing timekeeper equipped with a nicely executed dial featuring that famous Clous de Paris pattern in its center that serves as a good background for its three small sub-dials.

The pattern is, by the way, nicely matched by the grey textile strap. While not as practical as a standard NATO strap (and it will possibly be quite pricey to replace since there will be not many aftermarket bands that would match nonstandard lugs of the Mystique Sport Chronograph), the band still looks very impressive, mainly due to the stark contrast that it provides the mirror-polished surfaces of the body.

To increase night time legibility of the piece, Versace’s designers covered the hour and minute hands, as well as the applied hour markers, with patches of luminous substance.

To increase the timekeeper’s legibility even further, they also painted the central chronograph hand bright blue making it look even more contrast on the white background of the dial.

A little counter-intuitively, the blue rings were also introduced not only to the 12-hour and 30-minute chronograph counters that are placed at 6 and 9 hours respectively, but also to the small seconds indicator at 3 o’clock. In fact, they seem to love the color so much that they even used it to partly paint the minute scale on the bezel flange of the gadget, as well as used the same color for the contrast stitching of the textile strap.

What bothers me a little here, is the physical dimensions of this thing.

Being animated by a quartz mechanism, the Mystique Sport Chronograph comes in relatively thin. However, the timepiece has an officially specified diameter of 46 millimeters, which means that it will literally devour your wrist from side to side (and, probably, then some if you happen to have more narrow bones). The lugs on this model, however short they look, are in fact, too, quite long (they are just smartly covered by the grey textile strap, but you can see how far the central piece of the horn actually protrudes) and this, too, doesn’t help much.

If you feel like you absolutely must have this watch, but neither have one in a brick and mortar shop near you, nor want to waste time trying to resell it if the piece doesn’t match, just print a PDF from any size guide you can find on a site of a serious online retailer. However rough it is, it is still enough to get you an idea of whether the gadget fits you or not. Just make sure that you print it at 100%.

While this watch still looks a little bit too expensive if offered at MSRP, it still could be a good idea to keep an eye on one of these babies waiting for a good deal from an established online outlet that deals in fashion watches.